Basic Concepts of Sociology

Ch. 1-4

Methods: Field Study

Participant observation:
- Researcher is involved
- One of the best ways to understand behavior in a natural setting
- Ethnography: Often used when studying other cultures; living w/ and observing other people

Eugenics

the view, popular in the 20th century, that certain categories of people were biologically inferior & hence should be sterilized

Peter Berger

described sociological perspective
- patterns of society
- empowers to be an active participant

Auguste Comte

father of sociology; coined the term sociology

Sociologists

- Ask how and why people interact w/ one another
- Strive to see issues from the global perspective
- Global perspective - the study of the larger world and our society's place in it

Why did sociology develop?

New industrial economy:
- Rise of factories @ the end of the 18th century
- Traditions began to weaken
Growth of cities:
- As cities grew larger more social problems occurred
Political change:
- People were exposed to a new way of thinking

Robert Merton

Latent - not intended
Manifest - is intended

Theoretical Perspective: Conflict theory

- Karl Marx - one of the founders
- Goal of capitalism - is to make a profit
- See society as an arena of inequality creating conflict and change
- Some groups are getting better treatment than other groups
- Rapid change
- Macro Level

Theoretical Perspective: Symbolic interactionism

- Micro Level (small scale)
- Symbols, language, gestures, etc. to communicate
- Involves studying everyday interactions and situations, trying to understand the meaning behind them

Methods: Qualitative/quantitative

- Experiment - produce quantitative data
- Identify cause and effect relationship
- Test a hypothesis
- Control group v. experimental group
- Hawthorne effect: someone's behavior changes when they realize they are being watched
- Phillip Zimbardo: Stanford prison experiment

Methods: Field Study

Survey:
- No response rate
- Most common method used
- Sample & Population
- Random sampling: Everyone has an equal chance of being selected
- Snowball Sampling: Recruit others to be part of the study

Methods: Field Study

Secondary/Contact analysis:
- nonintrusive way to get information because others have already collected the data
- Using existing sources

Culture

Non-material & material objects that together form a people's way of life

Mores

- Formal sanctions (usually involve the law)
- Agreement not to do it
- Right vs. wrong
- Norms associated w/ moral significance
- Folkway: Etiquette & politeness

Value

- What people judge to be considered good & bad, proper and improper
- Serves as a guideline for how we live our lives

Symbols

Anything that carries meaning, is recognized by people who share a culture

Language

- Shape us to how we understand the world
- Cultural transmission - pass on culture from one generation to the next

Counter Culture

a culture going against the dominant culture

Cultural systems

Two basic concepts:
- artifacts
- ideas/symbols

C. Wright Mills

coined the term sociological imagination

Sociological imagination

- individual gains awareness of the society around him/her
- We connect our individual lives to large-scale events and we realize we're not as special as we thought, especially in a crisis
- We see our behaviors and others' behaviors in relation to social structures and history

Karl Marx

- Founder of conflict theory & communism
- Criticized capitalism: tends to concentrate wealth and power
- Concerned about social justice
Two main classes:
- Capitalists
Ex: Business owner
- Proletariats
Ex: Employee

Max Weber

- Verstehen - to understand
- Try to put ourselves in someone else's shoes

Emile Durkheim

- Famous study about suicide
- Argued suicide is profoundly social, meaning how connected someone feels to others
- Too much freedom might reduce the social ties that someone feels to society, therefore, that might make someone more likely to end their life compared to others
- "Crime provides a function for society"

W.E.B. DuBois

- 1st black male to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard
- One of the co-founders of the NAACP
(National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)
- Most of his work involved racial inequality

Harriet Martineau

- Mother of sociology
- Translated Comte's work from French to English
- Fought for the rights of slaves, immigrants, & women

Jane Addams

- Founder of the Hull House in Chicago
- Fought for the rights of slaves, immigrants, & women

Sociology

the study of human society, behavior, and social interaction

Theoretical Perspective: Structural/functional

- See society as a complex system whose parts work together for the operation of society
- Everyone and everything has a role
- Stability, slow change
- Social structure - any type of stable pattern in society
- Comte & Durkheim were interested in this approach to how society operates
- Macro Level (large scale)

Herbert Spencer

- Compared this theory to the human body
- Everyone and everything has a role

Methods: Field Study

Detached observation:
- A researcher is not involved at all

sociological perspective

the belief that people's social backgrounds influence their attitudes, behaviors, and life chances

Scientific Method

- Formulate a hypothesis: A statement of the relation between two variables
- Gathering data to test
- Carrying out test
- Analyze & write results
- Draw conclusions

Ethical Guidelines

confidentiality & privacy

Norms

Culture, non-material:
desired/expected behavior

Beliefs

what you hold to be true

Sapir Whorf

we have to use similar language to understand what people say

Culture Shock

feel disoriented experiencing a different way of life

Sub Culture

small culture w/in a larger culture

Ethno-centrism

judge another culture using your own standards

Cultural Relativism

the belief that all cultures are equally valid

2: Pre-operational

Use language and symbols to better communicate with people
Have quite the imagination
Approx. age 2-7

4: Formal

Start to think critically
Approx. age 12+

Conventional Stage

adolescents realize that their parents & society have rules that should be followed because they are morally right

Postconventional Stage

occurs in late adolescence and early adulthood,
individuals realize that higher moral standards may supersede those of their own society and even decide to disobey the law in the name of these higher standards

Carol Gillhigan - Built on Kohlberg's work

Boys and girls use different standards when assessing a situation as right and wrong
Boys have the justice perspective:
- Boys tend to rely on rules as to what is right and just
Girls have care and responsibility perspective:
- Look at relationships and loyalties

Concept of Self and Role of Other - George Herbert Mead

Studied kids at play

Role of Other

Children pretend to be other people
Acting out the behavior they think is expected out of them with that particular role

Significant other

A very important person in a child's life

Self

The self develops only with social experience/interaction
Children find out who they are in 3 stages:

Socialization

- Lifelong social experience by which people develop their potential and learn their culture

- Psychologists and sociologists have different theories as to how we are socialized

- Durkheim - first to make the distinction between psychology and sociology

Feral Children

- Lack the socialization from the way they grew up

- Deprives them of the obvious and not-so-obvious qualities of a human

- Retards their social, cognitive, and emotional development

Nature

Darwin's study of evolution lead people to believe our behavior is something we are born with

Nurture

- Sociologists claim that nurture is more important than nature
- John B. Watson

John B. Watson

- Developed Behaviorism:
Behavior that is learned

Theories of Socialization: Cycle Analytical View

Sigmon Freud:
Saw the personality in 3 parts
-Id: selfish part of you
demands immediate satisfaction
Ego: Trying to balance the Id & Super Ego
Super Ego: Tells you, you cannot have everything you want
Operation of culture within the person

Theories of Socialization: Cognitive View

Jean Piaget:
Cognition - to think
Identified 4 stages of cognitive development

1: Sensory motor stage

children are experiencing the world through their senses
Approx. age 0-2

3: Concrete

Asking what and how things are happening
Approx. age 7-11

Moral Reasoning - Laurence Kohlberg

He built on Piaget's work
Believed that incomplete moral development was prime cause of antisocial behavior
Said that children develop their ability to think and act morally through several stages

Preconventional Stage

young children equate what is morally right simply to what keeps them from getting punished

1: Imitation stage

mimic, copy you

2: Play Stage

No rules
No roles

3: Game Stage

Are rules
Kids must learn the roles and rules

Looking Glass Self Theory - Charles Cooli

Mirror - looking glass
How we think we look or appear according to other people's perception
Most important in childhood and adolescents (middle school)

Agents of Socialization

people, groups, or other social institutions that are going to socialize its new members

Agents of Socialization: Family

- Most important agent in early years
- Social class
- Biological sex - caused them to be raised differently

Agents of Socialization: School

Child's first experience w/ a bureaucracy
Usually socializes children into gender roles
- Boys tend to be more physical
- Girls more likely to help out their teacher and better behaved
Have a tendency to have a hidden curriculum
Following rules, listening, being respectful

Agents of Socialization: Peers

Shape the way children communicate with people

Agents of Socialization: Mass Media

influence a child's views, beliefs, and practices

Total Institution

these institutions have total control over the lives of the people who live in them.

Resocialization

A dramatic change in a person's beliefs, values, and behavior, often occurring in total institutions

Status

position in society

Status: Ascribed

attained with little or no choice

Status: Achieved

Attained through talent, ability, etc.

Status: Master

So powerful it overshadows all of the other statuses
Could be positive or negative

Role

Behavior expected of an individual in a particular status

Role Strain

The problems arising when a person performing a role has to deal with competing demands on that role.

Role Conflict

The problems arise when a person has to deal with competing demands on two or more roles the person is expected to play.

Degradation Ceremony

An encounter designed to humiliate an individual.

Dramaturgical analysis (Erving Goffman)

the idea that people's day-to-day lives can be understood as resembling performers in action on a theater stage

Groups

2 or more people who regularly interact and share a common identity

Groups: Aggregate

Collection of people in the same place at the same time
Usually don't interact, but if they do it is usually superficial

Groups: Category

Collection of individuals who have at least one attribute in common, but otherwise they don't interact

Primary Group

Small group, interaction
Care about one another
Emotional ties

Secondary Group

Impersonal, quite large
there for some type of task or function

In Group

feel included

Out Group

in conflict w/ another group

Reference Group

Groups that service some type of standard as to how we guide our own behavior

Group Leadership Types: Instrumental

Focuses on getting the task done

Group Leadership Types: Expressive

Likes harmony in the group
Concerned about the collective well being

Leadership Styles: Authoritarian

Somebody likes the rules
Wants compliance by their subordinates

Leadership Styles: Democratic

Wants to hear from everyone
Everyone gets a say

Leadership Styles: Laissez-faire

Hands off, leave it alone
Group functions on its own
There isn't really a leader

Consensus

Established by the Quakers
Everyone must agree

Solomon Asch

- Line experiment: purpose was to see how often the naive subjects in all the groups would give the wrong answer that everyone else was giving, even though it was very clear it was a wrong answer.
- Study was to see how important groups can be in our lives

Stanley Milgram

Shock experiment
Studied an individual's blind obedience to authority

Dyad

two-person group, can be very intense emotionally

Triad

three-person group that can be as intense but more stable

Types of formal organizations (Amitai Etzioni): Utilitarian

provide an income or some other personal benefit